34 b 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Dangerous 

 banks. 



Rose Point to 

 Masset. 



Rose Point. Eose Point was so named by Douglas in 1188, but is known to the 



Haidas as Nai-koon, or long nose. It is a remarkable promontory, 

 dependant apparently on no geological feature, but caused merely by 

 the meeting of the currents and waves from the southward and west- 

 ward round the corner of the island. The inner part of Eose Point, 

 near Cape Fife, does not differ from the low wooded coast to the south, 

 though according to Indian accounts there are inland a great number 

 of lakes and swamps, which may probably be lagoons like those just 

 referred to, but have become completely land-locked and hold fresh 

 water. Further out, where the point is narrower and more exposed, 

 it is clothed with small stunted woods, which in turn give place to 

 rolling grass-covered sand-hills. Beyond this the narrow gravelly 

 point is covered above high-water mark with heaps of drifting sand, 

 and great quantities of bleached timber, logs and stumps piled promis- 

 cuously together. The apex of the point is a narrow steep-sided 

 gravelly bank, which runs out for a long distance at low water. Two 

 small vessels belonging to the Hudson Bay Company have been lost on 

 this point, which being so low is very dangerous in dark or thick 

 weather, and, in the absence of a survey of the extension of the banks 

 off it, should be given a wide berth. 



From Eose Point to Masset the minor indentations of the shore are 

 so slight that it may be described as forming one grand crescentic bay 

 twenty-one miles in width. With the exception of a few small rocky 

 points tbe beach is smooth and regular, and almost altogether composed 

 of sand, though in some places coarse gravel occurs, and in its steep 

 slope above the ordinary high-water mark, evidences the action at 

 some times of a very heavy sea. Low sand-hills generally form a 

 border to the woods, which densely cover the land, and grow in dark 

 groves, with comparatively little underbush in many places, but 

 generally rather scrubby. The trees are chiefly Abies Menziesii. The 

 water is shoal far off the shore, especially on approaching Masset, 

 where kelp forms wide fields at a great distance from the beach. Bight 

 miles from Eose Point is the Hi-ellen River, a stream of some size, 

 which is frequented by great numbers of salmon in the autumn. Its 

 mouth forms a good boat harbour. On its east bank are the ruins of 

 an Indian village, on its west Tow Hill, an eminence remarkable in this 

 low country, faces the sea with a cliff composed of columnar volcanic 

 rocks of Tertiary age. A mile and a half west of the Hi-ellen Eiver 

 are several rude houses, inhabited by the Masset Indians during a 



Fishing village, portion of the summer while they are engaged in curing halibut and 

 making dog-fish oil. It is uncertain whether Tow Hill or a broad low 

 elevation which lies a short distance inland near Cape Fife is the 

 Nagdon (evidently a corruption of Nai-koon) Hill of the chart. From 



Salmon river. 



